The Catskill Mountains and the Hudson Valley face the possibility of serious environmental degradation and water pollution if the hydraulic fracturing moratorium is lifted in New York State. For many who grew up in this area or who currently call it home, this is an appalling and unacceptable possibility. Many people would go to great lengths to protect this pristine piece of land – but exactly how far would you go?

What if you could halt the sale of public lands in the Catskills – land used for hiking, camping, fishing and so much more – to oil and gas companies that plan to build roads and bring in enormous amounts of equipment and trucks to develop the land for drilling?

What if the sale were being rushed through on behalf of the oil and gas industry in an illegal way?

What if you could save 22,000 acres of the land you love?

What if doing so were illegal, and carried a potential sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum of $750,000 in fines?

It is likely that when considering this hypothetical situation you answered “yes” to each question, until the last one. Your righteous and daring mood probably gave way, as you thought there could be a better way to approach the situation, or that at least you still have a decent job in a tough economy, or that you do not want to risk losing your freedom and being away from your family or kids.

These are all valid considerations.

What if someone else was willing to do this on behalf of the community? Would you defend his actions, or would silently let him be made an example of by overzealous prosecution by the government?

These are the questions raised by the case of Tim DeChristopher. On Dec. 19, 2009, Tim DeChristopher, then a graduate student at the University of Utah, entered a federal auction being held by the Bureau of Land Management in his home state of Utah with hopes of protesting the sale of public lands. Upon entering, he was asked if he would like to be a bidder. DeChristopher saw his opportunity and proceeded to bid in an effort to drive up prices and win plots of land. He won 14 parcels totaling over 22,000 acres, at a price of $1.8 million, before officials shut down the auction and arrested him. By the end of the auction 148,598 acres had been sold for $7.2 million, an average of $48.65 per acre.

The Obama administration later invalidated the auction due to the fact that the Bureau of Land Management rushed the auction through on behalf of the oil and gas industry. In DeChristopher’s trial, the judge would not allow the invalidation of the auction to be considered by the jury.

DeChristopher’s three-day trial began on June 21, and the jury convicted him on the two felony charges he was facing: making a false statement, and violating the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reform Act. DeChristopher faced up to 10 years in prison and a maximum fine of $750,000 for his effort to impede what was later deemed to be an illegal auction. On July 26, DeChristopher was sentenced to two years in prison along with a $10,000 fine.

Having committed an open act of civil disobedience, DeChristopher has said that he is willing to accept legal punishment for his actions. As Dr. Martin Luther King once said, “An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.” DeChristopher reiterated King’s ideas at his sentencing by saying that the issue is not that he lacks respect for the law, but that he has a greater respect for justice.

As a society, however, we need not quietly accept DeChristopher’s punishment. Bidders in government land auctions often do not pay for the bids they win if they no longer see the land as profitable, yet they are not prosecuted. DeChristopher, on the other hand, has been prosecuted for impeding an illegal auction and trying to save a huge plot of public land from being destroyed by oil and gas companies.

Although DeChristopher did not initially intend to pay for the land, he was able to raise enough money to do so. However, the Bureau of Land Management did not accept payment for the land because, according to them, DeChristopher was not bidding under normal circumstances. The judge did not allow the jury to consider these facts either.

Saying that the government is trying to make an example out of DeChristopher is not hyperbole. According to a sentencing memorandum from the U.S. Attorney’s office, “the sentence should be crafted to ‘afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct’ by others.”

The government’s attempt to make an example out of DeChristopher has led to a national movement around his case. On July 26, the day of DeChristopher’s sentencing, people around the country showed their solidarity by holding protests outside of federal district courts including at the site of the sentencing in Salt Lake City, Utah where 26 protesters were arrested.

If you stand for the preservation of irreplaceable natural treasures and resources the Hudson River and the Catskill Mountains, you should stand in solidarity with Tim DeChristopher. The government’s attempt to make an example out of him is aimed at deterring courageous citizens from acting to protect the environment and their communities in the future, including here in the Hudson Valley. As Governor Cuomo moves toward reinstating the practice of hydrofracking, the need for such courageous citizens may be needed here very shortly.

Scott McDonald is an intern in Public Citizen’s energy program. Visit Public Citizen’s energy blog www.energyvox.org for more.

To the Board and Staff of 1 Sky,

We are grassroots and allied organizations representing racial justice, indigenous rights, economic justice, immigrant rights, youth organizing and environmental justice communities actively engaged in Climate Justice organizing.

Given the very necessary discussion spurred by your recent public letter (August 8, 2010), we wanted to share with you some of the work we have been doing to protect people and planet, as well as our reflections on a forward-thinking movement strategy. Your honest reflections on the political moment in which we find ourselves, alongside the open invitation to join in this discussion, are heartening.

Organizing a Powerful Climate Justice Movement
Like you, we recognize Climate Disruption as a central issue of our time. With the right set of strategies and coordinated efforts we can mobilize diverse communities to powerful action. Our organizing strategy for climate justice is to: 1) Organize in, network with and support communities who have found their frontlines[1] of climate justice; 2) Organize with communities to identify their frontlines of climate justice, and 3) Coalesce these communities towards a common agenda that is manifested from locally defined strategies to state and national policy objectives through to international solidarity agreements.

Community-Led Climate Justice has been Winning
In assessing the broader landscape of climate activism it is critical to recognize that despite the failure of DC policy-led campaigns, there have also been significant successes on the part of grassroots climate justice campaigns across the U.S.

Frontline communities, using grassroots, network-based and actions-led strategies around the country have had considerable success fighting climate-polluting industries in recent years, with far less resources than the large environmental groups in DC. These initiatives have prevented a massive amount of new industrial carbon from coming on board – here are just a few examples:

Stopping King Coal with Community Organizing: The Navajo Nation, led by a Dine’ (Navajo) and Hopi grassroots youth movement, forced the cancellation of a Life of Mine permit on Black Mesa, AZ, for the world’s largest coal company – Peabody Energy. Elsewhere in the U.S. community-based groups in Appalachia galvanized the youth climate movement in their campaigns to stop mountain-top removal (MTR) coal mining, and similar groups in the Powder River Basin have united farmers and ranchers against the expansion of some of the world’s largest coal deposits.

Derailing the Build-out of Coal Power: Nearly two thirds of the 151 new coal power plant proposals from the Bush Energy Plan have been cancelled, abandoned or stalled since 2007 – largely due to community-led opposition. A recent example of this success is the grassroots campaign of Dine’ grassroots and local citizen groups in the Burnham area of eastern Navajo Nation, NM that have prevented the creation of the Desert Rock coal plant, which would have been the third such polluting monolith in this small, rural community. Community-based networks such as the Indigenous Environmental Network, the Energy Justice Network and the Western Mining Action Network have played a major role in supporting these efforts to keep the world’s most climate polluting industry at bay.

Preventing the Proliferation of Incinerators: In the last 12 years, no new waste incinerators (which are more carbon-intensive than coal and one of the leading sources of cancer-causing dioxins) have been built in the US, and hundreds of proposals have been defeated by community organizing. In 2009 alone, members of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives prevented dozens of municipal waste incinerators, toxic waste incinerators, tire incinerators and biomass incinerators from being built, and forced Massachusetts to adopt a moratorium on incineration.

Defeating Big Oil In Our Own Backyards: A community-led coalition in Richmond, CA, has, stopped the permitting of Chevron’s refinery expansion in local courts. This expansion of the largest oil refinery on the west coast is part of a massive oil and gas sector expansion focused on importing heavy, high-carbon intensive crude oil from places like the Canada’s Tar Sands. This victory demonstrates that with limited resources, community-led campaigns can prevail over multi-million dollar PR and lobby campaigns deployed by oil companies like Chevron, when these strategies are rooted in organizing resistance in our own backyards.

REDOIL, (Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands) an Alaska Native grassroots network, has been effective at ensuring the Native community-based voice is in the forefront of protecting the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. Together with allies, REDOIL has also prevented Shell from leasing the Alaska outer continental shelf for offshore oil exploration and drilling. Advancing recognition of culture, subsistence and food sovereignty rights of Alaska Natives within a diverse and threatened aquatic ecosystem has been at the heart of their strategy.

Stopping False Solutions like Mega Hydro: Indigenous communities along the Klamath River forced Pacificorp Power company to agree to “Undam the Klamath” by the year 2020, in order to restore the river’s natural ecosystems, salmon runs and traditional land-use capacity. For decades, Indigenous communities have been calling out false solutions – pointing to the fact that energy technologies that compromise traditional land-use, public health and local economies cannot be considered climate solutions.

Building Resilient Communities through Local Action: In communities all over the US, frontline communities are successfully winning campaigns linking climate justice to basic survival:

• In San Antonio, Texas, the Southwest Workers Union led the fight to divert $20billion dollars from nuclear energy into renewable energy and energy efficiency. In addition, they launched a free weatherization program for low-income families and a community run organic farm.
• In Oakland, California, the Oakland Climate Action Coalition is leading the fight for an aggressive Climate Energy and Action Plan that both addresses climate disruption and local equity issues.

Lessons from the Beltway StrategyOur analysis of mainstream climate advocacy’s failure to win in the federal arena echoes yours, but differs in key areas. We agree there was insufficient investment in movement building, and a “beltway strategy” was prioritized without clarity on what the bottom lines were. “Anything is better than nothing,” will always lead to nothing, because it is a declaration of our intention to compromise. As a result, a decade of advocacy work, however well intentioned, migrated towards false solutions that hurt communities and compromised on key issues such as carbon markets and giveaways to polluters.

These compromises sold out poor communities in exchange for weak targets and more smokestacks that actually prevent us from getting anywhere close to what the science – and common sense – tells us is required. We encapsulate the lessons learned as follows:

Access was confused for Influence. We do not have influence in DC, regardless of how much face-time we get with legislators, or their staffers. To start from a place of power – you must first figure out where you have power, and build from there. We have power in our communities where we have relationships and can hold politicians and corporations accountable. In DC, corporate power rules because they can concentrate energy, resources and relationships there – in ways we cannot. However, when confronting these same corporations in our tribes, cities, and towns, we reveal that they are not nimble or powerful enough to defeat our communities.

Density was confused for Depth; and Mobilizing for Organizing. Since we are calling for a redoubling of grassroots organizing efforts, we should be clear what we mean. Grassroots Organizing is the process by which people in communities rally around a common cause, acting on their own behalf with allies and networks – often against powerful interests, often building new institutions needed to win a lasting change. The material conditions in communities have to change for the material conditions in DC to change. Anyone looking to support real and effective solutions would do well to look outside the beltway.

Targets were confused for Solutions. We will never win by centering our principal energy on CO2targets alone. Real Solutions must move past carbon targets, whether it is parts per million or percentages of emissions. Here is why:

1) Targets reinforce the “carbon fundamentalism” frame that hides the root causes of climate change. By not talking about root causes, we miss opportunities to connect climate disruption with failures of economic systems, resource wars and forced migration, for example. Targets also serve to reduce discussion on climate to arenas where corporations have greater access.

2) How we get to the targets is more important than the targets. By staking our claim solely around a target, we leave the political space for false solutions wide open. From technology solutions such as “clean coal”, “safe nuclear” and “renewable biomass” to market solutions such as offsets – these so-called solutions serve to line the pockets of those who got us into this mess in the first place, without dealing with the root cause. The targets we do articulate along with our solutions should be extremely aggressive and aligned with call from international social movements, such as those coming from the World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth.

Flipping the Script: Leading with the Grassroots
Given the significant gains we have had with community-led strategies for Climate Justice, and the failure of resource-intensive, beltway policy campaigns, we need to re-prioritize building power from the bottom up. The strategy we emphasize includes:

1) Investing in grassroots action at frontline struggles to win the victories that build our power, improve our communities and stop the corporations causing climate disruption;
2) Prioritizing local organizing to build the resilient communities, economic alternatives, and political infrastructure that we need to weather the climate crisis; and,
3) Supporting solidarity with grassroots movements around the world, to link our struggles, and to craft policies and structures we need internationally to support solutions determined locally.

International Solidarity for a Stronger Movement – Beyond Cancún
As grassroots forces, we have been building with social movements from around the world. Our groups were well represented at the World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Bolivia in April 2010. The Peoples’ Conference modeled what a more democratic, transparent policy-making process could look like and resulted in proposals that were formally submitted to the UNFCCC, Conference of Parties 16, in Cancun. These submissions are in the negotiating text, being championed by several southern nations. The demands in these submissions are clear and strong – No Offsets, No (Carbon) Markets, No Commodification of our Atmosphere or of Life.

While “offsets” are often cloaked as opportunities for “clean development”, this claim fails on two counts. First, offsets do not lead to clean development but to greater destruction, displacement and disempowerment. Second, the very premise of offsets is that it is allowable to continue polluting in poor communities and communities of color in the U.S. to justify over-industrialization of communities and their resources elsewhere.

As communities fighting climate pollution in our own backyards, we link our struggles with social movements worldwide to stand against offsets and other false solutions and to build real solutions based in our communities. We call on you to stand with us. If there is anything you can take away from this letter, we reiterate: The equation of power in our movement, just as in our country, must be inverted.

The leadership is coming from the grassroots everyday.

We will win Climate Justice by supporting the hundreds of communities around the country who are targeting the climate polluters in their communities, whether that is an energy source, a toxic industry, a dirty port, a big box chain, a freeway or a developer driving gentrification. Resources should be deployed to win those fights in those communities – for their own sake.

Grassroots Organizing Cools the Planet.

In power,

Alaska Coalition Against Toxics

Alternatives for Community and Environment

Asian Pacific Environmental Network

Asian/Pacific Islander Youth Promoting Advocacy and Leadership (AYPAL) Oakland, CA

Berthold Environmental Awareness Committee

Biofuelwatch

Black Mesa Water Coalition

Buckeye Forest Council, Columbus, OH (from Ananda)

Causa Justa::Just Cause (CJJC), Oakland and San Francisco, CA

Center for Earth, Energy and Democracy

Climate Ground Zero, Rock Creek, WV (from Ananda)

Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy

Communities for a Better Environment

Direct Action for Rights and Equality

Don’t Waste Massachusetts Coalition

Earth Circle Conservation & Recycling

Energy Justice Network

Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives

Global Justice Ecology Project

Grassroots Global Justice Alliance

Grassroots International

Indigenous Environmental Network

Institute for Policy Studies Sustainable Energy and Economy Network (IPS SEEN)

International Indian Treaty Council

International Sustainability Institute

Ironbound Community Corporation

Just Transition Alliance

Justice in Nigeria Now

Little Village Environmental Justice Organization

Mobilization for Climate Justice West, (MCJW) San Francisco Bay Area, CA

Movement Generation: Justice and Ecology Project

Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment MASE

Natonal Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR)

People Organized to Win Employment Rights

Resisting Environmental Destruction On Indigenous Lands

Rising Tide North America

Rural Resource Mobilization Towards Development (SUNA-MIGORI, Kenya)

S.ave O.ur S.acred Earth

Seventh Generation Fund

SmartMeme

Southwest Organizing Project

Southwest Workers Union

Stand Up / Save Lives Campaign

The Corner House UK

The Ruckus Society

United Puerto Rican Organization of Sunset Park

Youth For Justice

(Partial List of Signatures)

You can sign onto this letter as an individual at change.org.

Note: I chose the following photos to accompany this post.  They are not a part of the original letter. All photos are also property of Shadia Fayne Wood.

As photo curator for 350.org’s International Day of Climate Action, I had the privilege of going through the 20,000 photos that inundated our flickr account.  Through this process, my heart started filling with all of your visual stories, the laughter, the sincerity, the time and effort it took to put an event together.

Out of all the photos that came in, the shots that evoked gasps or rapid chat messages to other 350 organizers were the photos of children and babies.

People have different theories on how to raise children and whether or not they should be involved in campaigns before they have consciousness or opinions.  Speaking as a former infant participating in environmental protests, I am an in full support of the 350kids movement.

When I was 18 months old, my town, which had a population of 2,000, was cited for a landfill and an incinerator.  This sparked my mother, who had 6 children into a career of community activism.  In her way of keeping us close, I went wherever she was.  You can see in the photo to the right my wardrobe became a platform for strategic messaging, “Don’t Dump On Me.”

It’s no surprise to me that the largest scariest issue we’ve ever faced has parents getting their children involved, educating them early, and teaching them the value of civic engagement.

Of course, when it comes down to it, kids are just also really really adorable.  Combining the invaluable experience of involving children at a young age and their unbearable cuteness, we’ve created the 350Kids set and the 350cute & 350adorbs tags. So send your 350kid photos to photos@350.org and we’ll add them to the growing set of painfully cute photos.

Feel free to spread the cute heart warming photos throughout your networks.  After all, they are our hopeful future.

Here at Project Survival Media, we wanted to mark the event visually.  So we created a video, featuring Jon Warnow, 350.org’s Internet Director and Organizer of Pacific & Polar regions, to get a better sense of how this wonky policy target of 350 parts per million  relates to the survival of people.

I mean thousands of people aren’t heading to the streets because they’re all secretly wonky scientists.  It’s about what 350 represents to people all over the world in a time of crisis.  It’s stability, safety, and above all 350 means survival.

The footage we pieced together was from youtube — a few different sources that were urging people/journalists to spread the word about these crazy environmental disasters.

Please leave comments to let us know what you think

Last night  in Beirut, Lebanon more than 100 environmental activists sounded the alarm in Ein El-Mreiseh square.  This is where activists will also erect a Climate Change Countdown Clock to mark the short time line we have to reach a strong equitable global agreement at the UN Climate Negotiations (COP15). Most Arab Heads of State missed the  climate summit today in New York, so the action made sure to call on them to’wake up’ and engage in the negotiations.

Members, supporters and partners from the global league of independent Activists, IndyACT, sounded the alarms of their clocks and mobile phones, honked their horns and banged their musical instruments, making a tremendous noise in a symbolic action, part of a global ‘Wake-Up call’. The activists also held up a banner saying “it is time for climate action”, and another sign that says “Wake UP 12:18” to mark the 18th of December when a new global climate agreement is supposed to be reached.

This global call  took place simultaneously with over 2000 similar events in more than 120 countries, is a joint effort of the “TckTckTck” Campaign; an international alliance including IndyACT, 350.org, Greenpeace, Oxfam, WWF, and many others.  The action comes amid expert warnings that the UN climate pact in Copenhagen in December risks failure unless world leaders revive bogged-down negotiations at today’s UN Heads of State climate summit, ahead of the UN General Assembly.

“Again Arab leaders missed yet another opportunity to defend the survival needs of the region from climate change impacts.” said Wael Hmaidan, Executive Director of IndyACT. “While today’s climate summit is attended by Presidents of the US, France, China and many others, only Algeria participated at the Presidential level from the Arab region”, added Hmaidan.

At the summit today, heads of state will be discussing how the effort to fight climate change should be shared between the developed and developing countries, and how much financial and technological assistance will be transferred from the industrialized to the poor and most vulnerable countries to help them achieve a low-carbon growth.

IndyACT has been a tremendous leader in all the negotiations, pushing forth a binding equitable agreement in Copenhagen. In all of these sessions the Lebanese and many other Arab delegations have never taken the floor to speak even once.

Wael also said that, the main Arab countries engaging the negotiations are Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, who only defend their oil trade. “The Arab region is more than oil, and it must be known that if climate change is not addressed properly, we will lose our agriculture, water, economy and livelihood of our people in the Lebanon, in the Middle-East, and Globally.”

IndyAct is calling on all the Arab governments to have an active and positive role in reducing global CO2 concentration in the atmosphere to 350 ppm, the safe level of fossil fuel particulates in the atmosphere.

Her Words Follow:

We are hoping that you join the effort to oppose Joseph Pizarchik’s nomination for Office of Surface Mining (OSM) Director.  Apparently, Pizarchik has a track record of favoring coal companies and ignoring community environmental concerns.

Here in the southwest we are frightened by his nomination because this means more desecration of our natural landscapes for coal mining and testing grounds for future CCS (carbon capture sequestration) projects.   OSM is in charge of approving coal mining permits across the country.  And OSM’s structure for approving mining permit needs to undergo serious change, the standards and code books for OSM are so outdated.  In addition, their process for approval does not have to inform commmunity folks or ask for permission to bomb lands in our backyards.

When I heard Ken Salazar speak at Powershift 2009 I thought:  “Yes, maybe things can change and look upward for communities who are fighting these industries on the front line.”  But I think its going to take a lot more voices for that change to occur.

I ask you know to please contact your Senator, and Dept of Interior, and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to voice your concern!

In solidarity,
Wahleah Johns
Black Mesa Water Coalition

Take a couple minutes to watch this video.  It’s a bit long but worth all seven minutes.  Be sure to stick it out to the 3:00 minute mark where it shows compelling and harrowing photos before and after Pizarchik’s Destruction.

Step 1: Send the email below to these two addresses: Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar (via his aide: Thomas_Strickland@ios.doi.gov) and Senator Jeff Bingaman, Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee (via his aide: sam_fowler@energy.senate.gov).

Step 2: Send the email to your Senator using this link: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Step 3: Send this email on to your friends and family.

Do you want to report on the most compelling stories of the climate crisis?  Are you an amateur photographer wanting to learn the skills of your trade while doing your part to save the climate? Or maybe you are a videographer wanting to change the outcome of the UN Climate Negotiations (COP 15).

We are calling all passionate youth journalists who want to use their skills to launch “Survival,” to the forefront of the international political debate, amplify voices underrepresented by traditional media, and report on the most compelling climate stories from around the world.

Project Survival Media is a global youth journalism network that aims to influence the outcome of the COP 15 by broadcasting the most critical message of our time: As world leaders negotiate a new climate treaty, “Survival is Not Negotiable.”

We are seven media teams, one for each continent.  We build stories together that will focus on those roles in society that are most impacted by climate change: factory workers, farmers, mothers, organizers, and health care providers.

Who is eligible?
-    Any young person between the ages of 15-30.
-    Have some experience in any of the following: blogging, reporting, photography, or videography.
-    Has either a background in: climate change, human rights issues, global and local environmental justice struggles.
-    Living anywhere on one of the seven continents

Click Here to complete an application to be on the Project Survival Regional Media Teams.  ALL applications must be submitted by: September 11th, 2009.

It seems the new green economy has inspired the homeless, community organizers, faith leaders, and local officials alike. On my first day home I attended the launch of a new green low-income housing block in the poorest crime ridden area of Utica, NY—Corn Hill. Corn Hill is one of those area’s that never received enough public assistance and therefore remained a hot spot for drugs, murder, and racial disparity.

But things started to change with the initiative of two women, Reverend Skates and Reverend Meier. Their  commitment to the area and their beautiful vision for a transformed community brought all the right people together. We heard from speakers from the NYS Governor’s office, they mayor of Utica, and local homeless women that were moving into these new green homes.

I haven’t been so moved than when I heard Reverend Skates lead us in a visualization of the buildings around us. We yelled out words together like “Green!” or “Community Garden” pointing to broken down buildings and empty lots. With all of the right people in the room you could almost feel the space around you changing, especially when so much already had.

Copyright Shadia Fayne Wood

I think as young people we sometimes see ourselves bearing the entire burden of changing everything starting with policy and then our local communities. This reminded me of a couple things: 1) Positive change can flourish everywhere– without my involvement 2) Building up our local economies and communities deserves as much attention as our national work.

There is something to be said about the tangible gratification of this kind of work. It can be a hard thing to balance when climate policy seems to be the most important, yet elusive thing.

Passing a strong climate bill that protects communities like these, is the key to actually tangibly building a green future and more green communities.

As I get more in tune with my surroundings that balance becomes more critical. Let us integrate more hands-on creation in the movement and really shape the present for our local communities!

Imagine:

What if, on all seven continents, there were young people equipped to globally broadcast pivotal stories about the climate crisis?

What if these young people were empowered to amplify disenfranchised voices and propel the principle  of “Survival” to the forefront of the political debate?

Well this is Project Survival Media. In the lead up to the UN Climate Negotiations, we are assembling a global network of youth journalists who will use video, photography, and blogs to report from the frontlines of the climate crisis.

We use names like climate change and global warming. Really, we are talking about Survival. It is very clear that this struggle is not about future generations. It is right now.

Right Now

* Desertification is running rampant in Africa, detrimentally exasperating every social and health issue.
* Heat waves have spread over Europe claiming hundreds of thousands of lives
* Basic resources like water are becoming extinct in many parts of Asia or too plentiful and are already claiming islands
* Droughts lay thickly over Australia, exhausting their agricultural system
* Diseases are spreading exponentially each year all over South America
* And, Hurricanes and forest fires have spun out of control throughout North America.
* Oh and the Ice Caps, our global climate stabilizer, are melting

Everywhere, the fossil fuel industry is wreaking havoc. And as a result, everything is changing.

And yet, we continually hear this false contradiction parroted throughout the most powerful nations in the world: what is scientifically necessary is not politically viable.

So, it is not politically viable to adhere to scientific targets that ensure a sustainable, peaceful, equitable, and collaborative treaty? But somehow it is politically viable to let half the world drown in climate chaos?

The vast majority of people all over the world are calling on their governments to make these necessary changes, and Youth are at the forefront of this. We do not accept that some people are just not worth saving.

We call on our leaders to follow our example:

Event Details

Guest Speakers:
Adrienne Maree Brown the Executive Director of The Ruckus Society
Antonia Juhasz from the Chevron Campaign at Global Exchange
Shadia Fayne Wood Coordinator and Found of Project Survival Media

Live Art & Silent Auction
We have also secured artists who will do some live art.  Their pieces will then be up for silent auction.  All proceeds go to benefit Project Survival Media.

Bay Area DJ’s
-Haylow
-LN
-Dion Decibels
-The Whooligan

To Get involved with the project email me at Shadia.fayne@gmail.com.

To Download this video click here. It’s the video labeled COP14 (Say What You Want).

And the other video:

To download this video click here. (teardrop) It is labeled COP 14